While Moon Knight is certainly a member of the MCU, it stands out for a number of reasons, the first being the absence of any MCU characters from the series. Among the few allusions to the outside universe was made to Madripoor’s criminal underbelly, which was originally seen in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. However, this does not mean that no cameos and references were considered. In an interview, Jeremy Slater, the show’s executive producer and head writer, revealed how he tried very hard to get the Eternals into the series. Now, it has been revealed that he also wanted Captain America to make an appearance. Here’s why that didn’t work out:
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Jeremy Slater on Marvel appearances in Moon Knight:
Slater revealed that although there were no guest appearances from previously established MCU characters in Moon Knight, there had been discussions about include a number of well-known superheroes. “There were definitely different times in the writing process where we talked about cameos because cameos are one of the most fun things to discuss in a writer’s room,” the writer explained. “What happens if we try to get Chris Evans back as old Captain America? You know, you sit there and play that ‘what if’ game among your writers”. The aged Steve Rogers from Avengers: Endgame, who stayed in the past with Peggy Carter after surrendering the Infinity Stones, is the “old Captain America” Slater is alluding to. His current stance in the MCU is still unclear.
Slater explained that Dane Whitman almost made it into Moon Knight “because at the time Steven Grant was going to be working at the same museum. But there was never any logical reason for him to be in the show”. As for the Eternals, Moon Knight was “originally planning to show the original fall of Ammit and the death of Alexander the Great in a flashback sequence, and that seemed like it could naturally dovetail with an appearance from the Eternals,” explained Slater.
Why didn’t we get a Chris Evans Cameo?
The makers of the show eventually concluded that their money is better spent on making Moon Knight as amazing as possible rather than throwing that money over another character. “But once you start talking budget and start realizing, ‘Oh, if we’re spending [x] millions of dollars to recreate Ancient Egypt and get a lot of movie stars in here, then that’s that same amount of money coming out of our budget for the big episode six fight, or the stuff in the Egyptian Underworld.’ You then finally say, ‘Our money would be better spent making Moon Knight as cool as possible versus spending that money to bring in another character and let them be cool.’ So part of it was being practical. Another part of it was just the fact that we really let Kevin be our guiding light for a lot of these creative decisions because he has such a good gut instinct for it,” Slater revealed.
The writer explained how, as a result of Marvel Studios CEO Kevin Feige, they began to scrutinise potential cameos more carefully and stopped cramming in pointless appearances. Slater added, “Kevin comes to us and says, ‘You know what, guys? I know everyone loves the cameos. Everyone gets excited about it. But I really think your story is standing on its own two feet right now.’ Then it almost feels like shoehorning in an unnecessary cameo. Suddenly War Machine happens to be visiting Cairo at that time or something like that. It feels like it would have just jerked out of the story and really taken the focus away from the character journey that we were on between Marc and Steven. So it’s a little bit of a bummer because I like to play with all the toys in that sandbox, and I was like give me ‘Doctor Strange and Spider-Man.’ But at the same time, you recognize that it’s the right creative decision.”
